At least once a year, I meet up with my buddies from my animation days. There’s just the four of us; I found it much easier to make friends with the unusual personalities. That’s just a polite way of saying I make friends with outcasts.

The animation industry is a weird place.

It draws undoubtably highly creative people who are very open to new experiences. Introverts don’t do well in that industry. Keeping to yourself is a death sentence. Your next job depends a lot on if a fellow co-worker likes you enough to drop your name to the higher-ups so your reel can get shifted to the top of the candidate pile. Don’t get me wrong, talent plays a role in getting the job, but your people skills play a bigger role. I feel it may be the same in most industries, but skill matters a lot less in most other industries.

By my third year, I had cussed out Mr. IT for snapping at me. I forget what over, but I do know it wasn’t my fault. He apologized with a cookie and tea, and we’ve more or less enjoyed conversation nearly daily during my mother’s prolonged struggle with mental illness. He was a lifeline in maintaining my sanity.

Little M, came into the company as an assistant editor. He was responsible for putting together the initial video leikas needed to time our animation files. He’s a Star Wars and Star Trek super fan, going as far as sewing and fabricating his own cosplays. They’re pretty good too.

Then there’s Big M, a large 6ft+ burley man, who keeps his head shaved but sports a well-groomed goatee most of the time. Big M is the subject of today’s post.

I had the pleasure of working with him in my 4th year, and he, like myself, worked as a production coordinator. My job largely centered around putting together animation packets for the animation team, while Big M, chased down art assets so I could do my job. For the most part the design team was top-notch, but when the design lead was the Pipeline Manager’s BFF… well things went to hell in a handbasket pretty fast, and deadlines were largely a someone else problem. Meaning, a ME problem.

I have no people skills. So what I did was create a list of missing assets required for the week, hand that off to the Pipeline Manager for her to sort out. She obviously didn’t like that – because it became a weekly routine of handling of a list of several pages of missing assets.

In comes Big M. Now he’s an intimidating person… or so I’m told. My introduction to him was something along the lines of: “Who are you and what are you doing here? What do you mean that isn’t set up yet? Mr. IT, what’s up with that? You just found out? You have the bits? I’m up shit creak anyway, let’s see if you can get Big. M set up while I give him a crash course.” He had been waiting on the Pipeline Manager for a little over 30-mins. I was not impressed – I value time. She valued people acknowledging that she was in charge, even if that meant disrespecting an extra set of hands that could have been put to work for the team sooner.

Everyone gave Big M. a wide berth. So you can imagine the odd juxtaposition of this small barely 125lb (I miss those days) 5ft 6 woman bossing this much larger man around whose saying, “yes, mam.” He didn’t scare me. All I cared about what that he could do the work. He caught on quick.

That was then.

These days that animation company no longer exists. The CEO now teaches his terrible business practices at the Toronto School of Business. ‘Ignore industry experts 101’, ‘How to profit by cutting an already lean production schedule in half’, ‘Embezzling government grants to build a new wing to your house and have it written off as a tax break 201’, and ‘Break employee morale in under a month’ should be among his top lessons.

These days, me and the guys make a point of meeting up at least once a year, catching up over several cups of coffee.

This year I couldn’t attend. I mean, having relocated to a different country makes a regular meet up kind of a pain. I mean there are alternatives, like scheduling an online meet-up but that’s not worked out at all. It’s also nice to get out of the house – so I get it.

It was a couple months back when Mr. IT messages me with: “Big M’s heart surgery didn’t go so well. He’s back in the hospital doing a 2nd surgery.”

Last time I spoke with him in person, he was having complications post 1st surgery but the doctors were waiting on something. He’s reasonably not very keen on doctors, given his history of bad doctors, but he’s wise enough not to rely entirely on alternative medicine to treat this growing heart issue.

Mr. IT follows up with: “He’s published his book.”

He’d been working on this book for years off and on when time permitted. When he got sick and struggled to find the energy to stay active, that when I figure he found the time to get words to paper, or the digital equivalent.

I had been sharing with him my experience with my writing coach, which I use more for life-productivity rather than for writing, and he’d taken a keen interest in doing the testing and maybe enrolling in the course. While I haven’t used much of what I’ve learned for writing, it has been a game changer for personal acceptance and in helping managing day-to-day life projects, and teaching me loads about my personal drivers, mental load, and capacity to get things done.

He's not built mentally the same way I am. So when I ask what he’s hoping to get out of the book should he publish, it’s out of genuine curiosity. But if I’m honest, I’m also terrified of his answer. Most new-to-publishing-authors will say something like they don’t care if the book sells, but really they’re desperate for that book to be their lottery ticket. I don’t blame them for that either, but that’s one hell of a creativity killer. (FYI, I’m in the camp where I don’t think it’s wrong to want to profit from your books - the path just looks different from folks who are genuinely ticking an item off their bucket list).

As much as I want people to succeed, I think I prefer predictable results over the long term over a unicorn blockbuster whose success you can’t repeat because you have no idea how you got there to begin with. I listened to a lot of podcasts where that turned out to be the case, and as much as I want him to succeed…

His answer isn’t one I was expecting.

He’s not thinking about the possibilities. Instead, he’s thinking about the past and how much fun he used to have writing. He missed writing, but since his son was born, the chaos of a bitter divorce, and shared custody like it’s some territorial dispute, the closest to fun he’s had was when he was biking out on the open road with his 2nd wife. His problems, a faded memory in the wind.

When he got sick…. No before that. When covid hit, I believe hitting the open road got too costly, combined with lockdowns, escapism had to be achieved another way.

I remember asking him if he was going to get an editor. He said he’d rely on a writing buddy. I cringe inwardly because that never ends as well as one would hope, but keep my thoughts to myself because he’s said nothing about his aspirations going forward. Writing for him was about catching something from the past.

I bought his book.

He doesn’t know I bought his book, and until Mr. IT mentions it to him after reading this entry, I’d like to keep it that way. (Don’t TELL HIM Mr. IT!)

I can’t stand the hopeful: “What did you think?”

You don’t want to know what I think, and if I tell you “It was good,” and left it at that, he’d know “I was lying.” He’d know because he knows that I’m hyper-critical. That’s part of how my brain in wired is the part that drives me to have a high bar, to always do better. I make mistakes like the best of them – my grammar leaves a lot to be desired, and there’s always room for improvement. My brain is wired to spot problems – largely problems that may cause physical injury, cause a delay in the schedule, or manifest annoying extra challenges. The way my brain is wired often grates against folks who ONLY want positivity in their lives.

I’m not negative. I can see the potential; I’m energized by it in fact! But I’m not fool enough to believe that just because I can see the bright future ahead that it’s not littered with challenges. I need to be prepared.

I hope he never finds out that I read his book. I don’t want to answer the question.

Was it worth reading? Yes. I had a lot of fun with it.

Does it have its problems? Yes. Like…. That free editor wasn’t worth what he paid him.

But since he doesn’t intend on making a career out of writing, I feel good recommending it, which is such a weird paradox to consider. His ego isn’t hanging on his success and won’t be crushed by his failure, at least that’s the impression I got the last time I spoke with him about this project.

He should have done his surgery by now…

I know he was facing death in the face not that long ago, and I’d like to do something for him – I mean outside of buying his book and saying something nice about it. I figured I could share it with you, and you’ll do what you’ll do.

But for the time being, I want to sneaky support my friend in his creative pursuit even if he thinks it won’t go anywhere.